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Immune modulation following keratoplasty – current and future aspects
Author(s) -
Pleyer Uwe
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
acta ophthalmologica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.534
H-Index - 87
eISSN - 1755-3768
pISSN - 1755-375X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1755-3768.2019.5060
Subject(s) - immune modulation , transplantation , medicine , corneal transplantation , intensive care medicine , graft rejection , immune system , immunology , surgery
Penetrating keratoplasty (pkp) has definitely its paradoxes. It has been the first successful transplantation in man and is with approx. 100.000 grafts/year easily the most frequent allograft in human medicine. At the same time, it is still the least understood form of transplantation in respect to its biology. It is both, the most successful as well as probably the most underestimated procedure regarding its risks in clinical transplantation. Indeed, the common assumption, that pkp is a safe procedure with favourable prognosis. This may have hindered more intensive efforts of research in this field. There are still limitations to corneal transplantation, and allograft rejection still poses the greatest challenge. In the last two decades, graft survival has greatly improved by the introduction of efficient immunosuppressive drugs. This lecture aims to highlight the most novel and successful strategies to achieve a better outcome of pkp, e.g. the use of mesenchymal stem cells and tolerance induction via regulatory T cells.